With the Southeastern Conference Tournament imminent, Texas A&M men’s basketball will face one last test against LSU on Saturday, March 7, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to close out the inaugural season of Bucky Ball in Aggieland.
February was a month the Aggies would like to forget after the hot start they experienced at the beginning of conference play, boasting a 17-4 record good enough for No. 1 in the SEC. But just like the fickle weather around this time of year, the squad turned cold, as a 2-6 February stretch dropped the Aggies all the way down to eighth in the conference.
While the road has been hard, A&M has kept itself close in games to keep NCAA Tournament hopes alive. The Aggies had 3 of their 6 contests last month come down to two-possession games, none more heartbreaking than dropping the Lone Star Showdown by just six points in front of the 12th Man.
“I know we’re disappointed, but I also know that no one’s more disappointed than those guys playing,” head coach Bucky McMillan said following the loss to Texas. “We’ll win a lot more of these than we’ll lose. We got a split this year, but I feel good about what we’re going to do going forward.”
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology has the Aggies as a 10-seed, sitting right on the bubble for the tournament. This closing stretch of the season — with upcoming games against LSU and in the SEC Tournament — will prove crucial for A&M in cracking the field of 64.
The Aggie offense has been stagnant as of late, relying heavily on the likes of graduate student forward Rashaun Agee and graduate student guard Marcus Hill. Unlike the beginning of the season, when multiple Aggies were putting points on the board, the past month has seen a heavier scoring burden on Agee and Hill.
“We need some of our guys to step it up in some ways, and we need some of our perimeter players to step it up a little bit,” McMillan said. “I think that it’s coming, you know, the guards this time of year, you’ll see here as we approach March, the guards got to rise up.”
The Fightin’ Farmers will head east to Baton Rouge to take on a familiar opponent, the LSU Tigers. The Aggies took on the Tigers in their opening matchup of SEC play, grabbing a 75-72 win in January. That game saw four Aggies score double-digit points, something that only happened once in the month of February.
Going forward, a name that must heat up for the Aggies is sophomore G Rubén Dominguez. The Spaniard started off the season as one of the best 3-point shooters in the country, breaking the A&M record for 3-pointers made in a game. Recently, however, Dominguez hasn’t been himself from behind the arc, putting up double-digit points only twice since Jan. 21. A hot finish from him at this stage of the season could propel the Maroon and White to close out the regular season strong and push toward the NCAA Tournament.
Senior G Max Mackinnon will be a name to keep tabs on for the Tigers. The Brisbane, Australia native has led LSU in scoring all season with 15.5 points, notably putting up 20 against A&M in its first matchup.
“It just wasn’t our day,” Agee said. “We got a turnover to the next game. We got to get in the gym and get ready for the next game.”
With the SEC tournament pending, and a trip to the NCAA Tournament on the line, A&M will need to flush the month of February and reset against LSU. Tipoff for the Aggie-on-Tiger matchup is set for 5 p.m. at Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge.
